Cubs offseason chit chat...

[CubinNY]

According to BN the Cubs may have signed a Blake Weiman LHP (any relation to Bert Weiman?) to a minor league deal.

[Tryptamine]

28 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

According to BN the Cubs may have signed a Blake Weiman LHP (any relation to Bert Weiman?) to a minor league deal.

28 years old, never seen any big league time and consistently carries a sub 9 K/9 and a very high HR/FB, He threw 24 innings against lefties last year and gave up 20H, 6ER, 3HR while striking out 25, sporting a 2.25 ERA and having a 1.07 WHIP. He's strictly a guy to throw against lefties as he had a 1.87 WHIP against righties in AAA last year across 40.0IP. This has got to be a pitch lab guy, because even his vs. lefties numbers were just OK in AAA.  

[Stratos]

1 minute ago, Tryptamine said:

28 years old, never seen any big league time and consistently carries a sub 9 K/9 and a very high HR/FB, He threw 24 innings against lefties last year and gave up 20H, 6ER, 3HR while striking out 25, sporting a 2.25 ERA and having a 1.07 WHIP. He's strictly a guy to throw against lefties as he had a 1.87 WHIP against righties in AAA last year across 40.0IP. This has got to be a pitch lab guy, because even his vs. lefties numbers were just OK in AAA.  

How do you view minor league splits?

[Tryptamine]

Just now, Stratos said:

How do you view minor league splits?

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/blake-weiman-676620?stats=splits-r-pitching-milb&season=2023

[Transmogrified Tiger]

7 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

28 years old, never seen any big league time and consistently carries a sub 9 K/9 and a very high HR/FB, He threw 24 innings against lefties last year and gave up 20H, 6ER, 3HR while striking out 25, sporting a 2.25 ERA and having a 1.07 WHIP. He's strictly a guy to throw against lefties as he had a 1.87 WHIP against righties in AAA last year across 40.0IP. This has got to be a pitch lab guy, because even his vs. lefties numbers were just OK in AAA.  

The tweet I saw on this was Driveline announcing his signing so he must've been working out there this year and shown off something in a workout for teams.

[chibears55]

15 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Does a deal with early opt outs really make sense for the Cubs?  There are two common outcomes with those types of deals - either the player is good and leaves or the player is bad and you're stuck with him.  Either one of those benefits the player.  In a case where the market for Bellinger is tepid, I don't think I would go out of my to give him multiple opt out opportunities.

It would be a cub thing to do, they could offer him a 2 or 3 yr deal with mutual options.

 

[Rob]

8 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

It would be a cub thing to do, they could offer him a 2 or 3 yr deal with mutual options.

 

I could definitely see Bellinger and/or Boras prioritizing something with an opt-out after 1-2 years. A lot of teams are hesitant to pony up for Bellinger because there's just so much to dislike in his batted ball data. If he can show that it's not a fluke, teams will be much more inclined to pay up.

[Bertz]

44 minutes ago, Stratos said:

How do you view minor league splits?

Baseball-Reference has them, but not broken out by level.  That's the best I've seen since MinorLeagueSplits.com went under unfortunately 

[Bertz]

There is scuttlebutt on Twitter that the Mariners are about to do something big. 

[Rob]

5 minutes ago, Bertz said:

There is scuttlebutt on Twitter that the Mariners are about to do something big. 

A day or two ago there were some rumors about the Mariners having interest in Cease. I didn't see the point in that unless he was unloading some of his pitching surplus. I wondered if we might be involved.

God bless Jerry Dipoto and his tradelust. He always keeps it interesting.

[Rcal10]

50 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

It would be a cub thing to do, they could offer him a 2 or 3 yr deal with mutual options.

 

If it is only 2 or 3 years who care about opt outs? If he sucks they keep him for 3 years. Not the end  of the world. If he is good he leaves. Again, they obviously don’t want to do a longer deal if they do something like this, so they get a good year or two out of him. 

[Bertz]

3 minutes ago, Rob said:

A day or two ago there were some rumors about the Mariners having interest in Cease. I didn't see the point in that unless he was unloading some of his pitching surplus. I wondered if we might be involved.

God bless Jerry Dipoto and his tradelust. He always keeps it interesting.

Yeah if true the way I see it there's four possibilities

1. They sign one of the Boras 4, with Snell being the most likely 

2. They are trading for Dylan Cease

3. They are finally trading Miller/Woo for a comparable young bat 

4.  Jerry does one of his classic "trade two quarters for five dimes" type of deals where he just rearranges the Mariners roster out of impulse

Any of the trades can involve the Cubs.  We did see that rumor that he was talking to the Cubs about Madrigal, and Morel is an obvious fit there as well.  And even a FA move would have market impacts, even if it's Snell who we don't think Jed is in on.

[Derwood]

Saw a report that the Yankees offered Snell six years and Boras countered with nine

 

no wonder he hasn’t signed yet

[WhyCantWeWin]

Does anyone know what date does the draft compensation penalty not apply any longer when signing a free agent?

[Ding Dong Johnson]

4 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Does anyone know what date does the draft compensation penalty not apply any longer when signing a free agent?

After the start of the draft.

[thawv]

47 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Saw a report that the Yankees offered Snell six years and Boras countered with nine

 

no wonder he hasn’t signed yet

I read that his only offer was 6/150.  The Yankees must have been the team then. 

[Dfan25]

15 hours ago, Stratos said:

Please name a GM that had a better offseason than Jed last offseason?  Mets?  Padres?  The overwhelming majority of FA signings last year were a bust for all teams, especially the ones we may have been interested in.  The idea that a team is going to have zero dollars in dead money is simply unrealistic. 

If you're going to knock him for Mancini/Barnhart/Smyly then you have to give him credit for Swanson and Bellinger, which were among the 2 best signings of the offseason, and credit for not signing guys like Abreu, Rodon, DeGrom, Verlander, Correa, Rizzo, Bell, Conforto, Benintendi, Syndergaard, Vazquez, Navarez and so far getting the best of the 4 big FA SS at the cheapest price.

Really Stratos ?

That’s the best you have to defend his stupid spending at the end of last offseason ? Expecting a team to have zero dead money is unrealistic ? It wasn’t a small amount of money . Basically 20 million in garbage players that no team wanted on more than a  1 year deal . How different things would look right now with 20 more mil to use ? 
 

What part about signing Bellinger to a 1 year deal makes Jed a genius ? Plenty of teams were interested in signing Bellinger to a 1 year deal . It wasn’t like Jed did anything out of the box than no other team was willing to do to sign Bellinger . If anything the Cubs got lucky Bellinger chose them . Bellinger to the Cubs was a pretty obvious move last offseason .

Let’s not talk like Jed had a crystal ball and knew which free agents were going to suck last offseason . They were in pretty deep on Abreu / Vázquez / Bell . They got lucky those players didn’t chose them . 

At least in year 1 they won with the Swanson deal , I have no problem accepting that . I also think they have done a great job with the minor league system since Hoyer took over . 
 

With that said he has made plenty of stupid moves as well and I am just tired of people like you defending every move he makes and blaming Ricketts for his failures . If the only way he can build a really good team while staying under the LT is by waiting for the system to produce 3-4 really good players , then he just isn’t good at his job . 
 

 

 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Jed Hoyer, famous for adding additional years to contracts when it's not necessary, gave Smyly/Mancini/Barnhart 2 years when no one else would even consider doing so.  Also, everyone wanted to sign Bellinger for his contract and it was just a roll of the dice that Bellinger happened to pick the Cubs.  These two things are both undeniably true and not internally contradictory.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

20 hours ago, BobbyD3 said:

Rob, you can certainly believe what you want, and I know you will.  That's great.  In fact, isn't that what our country encourages us to do?  We exist together with our differing beliefs and attempt to respect each other, despite our differing views.  We sit on opposite sides politically, and I am certainly not going to try and change you.  That old saying truly applies... "you do you".  I'm here for baseball talk; not politics, and the only reason that I responded as I did earlier is because I thought that your comment was a harsh blanket statement cast on the right-wingers.  I'm not upset,  It seems that you are, and I really wish you were not.  In fact, I have many friends that are liberals and we are still great friends.  We talk sports, not Biden, not Trump, not political issues.  It works really well.  We don't have to be friends, but I hope we can be fellow Cubs fans.      

You're talking about adhering to a social contract you've already willfully excluded yourself from 

[LBiittner]

Kumbaya My Lord, Kumbaya

[Stratos]

1 hour ago, Dfan25 said:

Really Stratos ?

That’s the best you have to defend his stupid spending at the end of last offseason ? Expecting a team to have zero dead money is unrealistic ? It wasn’t a small amount of money . Basically 20 million in garbage players that no team wanted on more than a  1 year deal . How different things would look right now with 20 more mil to use ? 
 

What part about signing Bellinger to a 1 year deal makes Jed a genius ? Plenty of teams were interested in signing Bellinger to a 1 year deal . It wasn’t like Jed did anything out of the box than no other team was willing to do to sign Bellinger . If anything the Cubs got lucky Bellinger chose them . Bellinger to the Cubs was a pretty obvious move last offseason .

Let’s not talk like Jed had a crystal ball and knew which free agents were going to suck last offseason . They were in pretty deep on Abreu / Vázquez / Bell . They got lucky those players didn’t chose them . 

At least in year 1 they won with the Swanson deal , I have no problem accepting that . I also think they have done a great job with the minor league system since Hoyer took over . 
 

With that said he has made plenty of stupid moves as well and I am just tired of people like you defending every move he makes and blaming Ricketts for his failures . If the only way he can build a really good team while staying under the LT is by waiting for the system to produce 3-4 really good players , then he just isn’t good at his job . 
 

 

 

The Mancini/barnhart/Smyly deals were mediocre at the time and we all knew it.  But compared to what?  Cubs fans wanted guys like Abreu and Conforto, and those are worse contracts than anything Jed signed.  They wanted Turner and/or Bogaerts over Swanson, and those Turner/Bogaerts contracts are so embarrassingly bad they're beyond description, and were the moment they were signed and I said so and everyone got on me for it.  If you don't like bad money then what would you say when Turner and Bogaerts are sucking wins from their teams because they're still on the roster when they're 40 and 41 years old, not to mention in the latter half of their 30's when Swanson is already a FA again?

Verlander's contract was bad the day it was signed and Cubs fans defended it.  Spending 40m AAV x 3 years for a 40 y/o pitcher is a very stupid contract only a fool would sign.

Also, the players we missed on didn't "choose" other teams as you claim, the Cubs chose not to give them the most expensive offer.  Players usually go with the team that gives them the best contract.

If you think Hoyer's made some bad moves last offseason that's fine but we need context, so again show me a GM who had a better offseason last year than Jed because most teams did a lot worse and added a lot more bad money than Jed did.  Your standard is perfection and that's just not possible, but its possible to minimize risk.  A few modest AAV 2-year deals that aren't very good is better than having most of the other "better" FA's we passed on.

I hope we pass on those lame replacement-level players on multiyear deals going forward, but i'm even more glad we pass on paying 41 year olds elite money.

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Jed Hoyer, famous for adding additional years to contracts when it's not necessary, gave Smyly/Mancini/Barnhart 2 years when no one else would even consider doing so.  Also, everyone wanted to sign Bellinger for his contract and it was just a roll of the dice that Bellinger happened to pick the Cubs.  These two things are both undeniably true and not internally contradictory.

How is it a roll of the dice?  Bellinger likely picked the team that offered the most money, just like every other FA does.  I don't think Javy Baez loved the idea of playing in Detroit or Bryant wanted to play for a terrible organization than was destined to lose every year.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

2 minutes ago, Stratos said:

How is it a roll of the dice?  Bellinger likely picked the team that offered the most money, just like every other FA does.  I don't think Javy Baez loved the idea of playing in Detroit or Bryant wanted to play for a terrible organization than was destined to lose every year.

I was being facetious

[morrisjon]

.233. 313 .367

.222 .267 .325

Bryant and Baez's stat line last season. 

Hoyer deserves credit for walking away from that. 

[Thusly Boned]

Just now, morrisjon said:

.233. 313 .367

.222 .267 .325

Bryant and Baez's stat line last season. 

Hoyer deserves credit for walking away from that. 

Yeah, but also some blame for not walking away sooner, perhaps. The team ended up with decent enough returns for those two, but I felt at the time that the core was sold off a little too late.